


questionable taste

by preromantics



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Fluff, Gen, Kittens, M/M, Pack Family, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles accidentally ends up with a co-dependent kitten with weird taste in people (for various definitions of 'accidentally', including 'given to in a parking lot by a random old lady'). / <i>"Wow," Stiles says, "thanks but no thanks, I'm not really a cat person. In fact, most of my friends are dog people so it just really wouldn't work out."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	questionable taste

**Author's Note:**

> I debated tagging this as not!fic because, although it is masquerading as something with proper capitals and semi-accurate grammar, it started life as a (2400 word) series of text messages (why is anyone friends with me) and as such, despite being cleaned up for an over use of kawaii emoticons and exclamation points, is still a bit more rambling than something I'd usually post and only has a semi-solid narrative. But -- Stiles and a kitten. Everyone meeting the kitten. Derek and a kitten. It seemed a shame to leave this to die in the eternal pits of Whatsapp. 
> 
> Also, if it super matters to you, the background alluded to pairings in this are Sheriff/Melissa and Isaac/Scott/Allison.

Stiles doesn't so much adopt a kitten as get stopped outside the grocery store by a lady who in retrospect he totally thinks might have been a witch instead of a really crazy cat lady. Or both, whatever.

She gets really up in his personal space before he has a chance to look up from his phone and go inside - (his dad would have so much to say on the subject of walking and texting: "It's just as bad as distracted driving, Stiles." To which Stiles would reply: "I can run away from creatures of the night while texting with more coordination than I can with full visibility on our stairs, are you seriously telling me that if I'm in a life or death car chase with a supernatural bad guy I shouldn't text someone that I'm in danger?" but that's all beside the point) - and she puts both of her hands on his chest.

"Wow, bad touch," Stiles says, but she totally ignores him, mutters something he doesn't catch, nods and lets go. So he makes a face and manages an indignant noise at her and walks past her to go inside and get the groceries he knows the house needs. The outside old lady weirdness is quickly eclipsed by his ever-growing mental list of food the house is in need of now that he's back from school for the summer. His dad has been buying way too much junk while Stiles is away -- he seriously has to have a talk with Melissa McCall about it because he knows she's enabling it, with how it's clear she's at the very least not making sure his had as healthy snacks in the fridge. They're probably trading baked goods and fast food cheeseburgers for for sexual favors. Oh, gross, he just wigged himself out next to the lettuce.

He forgets about the bad touch lady until he goes back outside and starts loading his grocery order into the back of the jeep, and he's turning back to the cart for another armful of paper bags when he nearly brains himself on door because the lady is right there and also holding out a tiny little black kitten with wide eyes and comically tiny legs dangling underneath it in the air.

"Especially for you," the lady tells him.

To which Stiles waves his arms out in front of himself and backs up. "Wow," he says, "thanks but no thanks, I'm not really a cat person. In fact, most of my friends are dog people so it just really wouldn't work out." He cracks himself up a little, at that, but the lady keeps staring at him, creepily blank, and the kitten in her hands starts squirming as he backs up to put more groceries in the jeep. Hoping the ignoring method works better than the rambling method, he turns back around and is happy to find the lady is gone, not even anywhere to be seen in the parking lot, actually -- is there a league of the Beacon Hills retirement community currently training for marathons? -- but then he notices the kitten is sitting wide-eyed in the child seat part of his grocery cart.

It's so tiny and clearly distressed by the fact it's stuck high above the ground that Stiles says fuck it out loud and then kind of feels weird about it immediately after, because the kitten is a baby and god, it's not like he can offend a cat or teach it bad language but it's so small and innocent looking it throws him off for a moment. He looks around the parking lot for a second before he scoops the little kitten up and sticks it in his hoodie pocket so he can go back into the store and buy kitten food.

He keeps a hand in his pocket cradling the kitten so it doesn't fall out, and he probably looks sort of like a pervert when he walks back into the grocery store but it wasn't like he could just leave the kitten in the cart for any random grocery store patron to take. This kitten was "especially" for him, according to the old mumbling marathoner lady. A catastrophic karmic chain of events could be set off if the kitten ended up with the wrong person.

He buys kitten food and then grabs some catnip after a moment of deliberation during which he spares a thought to the werewolf equivalent of catnip and makes a mental note to cash in a favor with Deaton ASAP. After he's tucked the baggie of catnip under his arm he gives up on the pretense of temporary kitten ownership and ends up with more than he can carry in one arm of cat related paraphernalia.

"This is not how I expected my day to go," he tells the kitten when he lines up at the check out. The cashier looks at him duly, like she's not all that unsurprised by a kid talking to the bulge in his pocket in the middle of the afternoon on her check out line. The kitten looks up at him with its little head outside just outside of Stiles' pocket behind his hand and opens its mouth around Stiles' thumb in response.

-

Scott meets the kitten first because he's sitting in Stiles' living room when Stiles gets home.

"Thank god," Scott says. "Why does your house have nothing to eat, dude?"

Stiles waves a heavily laden arm of groceries at him and rolls his eyes. "I was at the store, addressing that. And I think it's because my dad mostly eats at your house while we're away, but please lets not talk about that."

Scott makes a gagging noise and follows him into the kitchen. Stiles juggles several bags of groceries with balancing the kitten in his pocket, while Scott hops up on the counter next to the coffee machine and knocks a few half-used spices over with his ass. It takes him several minutes before he notices the kitten in Stiles' pocket.

Stiles definitely wished he'd timed it so his head wasn't near the edge of a fridge shelf, but he laughs anyway after hitting his head when Scott exclaims: "That's a cat!" in a decidedly outdoor voice.

"I see you've really been working on those keen alpha senses at college, buddy," Stiles says, but wraps both his hands around the bundle of squirming fur in his pocket and takes it out for Scott to see. The kitten hisses when Scott reaches out for it, its little head thrown back in all seriousness, eyes narrowed.

"Hey, that's our best friend," Stiles admonishes, and the kitten blinks up at him for a long moment before it settles down enough for Scott to pet it between it's little ears while it makes a grumpy face.

Scott makes a grumpy face back because apparently all animals should automatically love him, or whatever, and Stiles only makes fun of him for it with one bambi joke.

-

It turns out that Kitten, (Stiles is just alternating calling it Kitten and Bad Idea) doesn't actually like being held by anyone other than Stiles. Or being put down anywhere in general. Or being out of Stiles' sight, which makes peeing kind of suck and every two-handed task a lot harder to manage.

The kitten doesn't even let Lydia pick it up, and Stiles shakes a finger in kitten's face at that.

"You're sitting in front of an actual goddess! You have horrible taste, I can't believe you're mine," he says.

But it's okay because Lydia is mostly disinterested after her first initial coo, and goes back to her research with a flick of her wrist in Kitten's direction. Stiles feels kind of bad for yelling, so he turns back toward his computer so he can put kitten next to the keyboard and whisper an apology.

Kitten blinks up at him, head twisting around when Lydia snorts a little at Stiles' whispering. After a tense second of alertness, Kitten curls up next to the keyboard and Stiles gets back to updating the online version of the beastiary.

-

Danny, who shows up for research an hour later, is mildly allergic to cats.

Stiles is not proud to admit he gets a little thrill seeing Danny's eyes puff up and his nose get a little red from sneezing. It's just nice to see one of the specimens of near-human perfection he hangs out with on the regular look a little less perfect for a while.

Kitten bites on Stiles' thumb when he zones out watching Danny blink with watery eyes at the lines of code on his laptop screen and Stiles sighs. "You're right," he tells Kitten, and, after a moment of mental memorization, gets up to grab an allergy pill from the medicine cabinet with some water for Danny.

Stiles takes Kitten with him in his hoodie pocket because of Kitten's apparent separation issues and when he comes back in the room Danny thanks him with a charming smile that looks no less gross for the puffy redness of his face. Danny gets in a little pat on Kitten's head before Kitten ducks further into Stiles' pocket.

-

Isaac, who Stiles finds at Scott's the next day, is immediately smitten with Kitten from afar until he tries to reach out and pet between Kitten's ears and gets three tiny slashes down his arm and a cute little hiss for his attempt. Isaac's face wolfs out and he glares, so Stiles shields kitten up against his chest and stares him down.

"Dude! This is a baby! Put your eyes away!"

"It cut me," Isaac complains, even though there is no trace of the scratches on his skin at all.

Scott wraps an arm around Isaac's neck and does an alpha thing that makes Isaac melt back against him and stop being wolfy. Well, Stiles hopes it's an alpha thing and not a creepy bedroom TMI thing, because there are limits on what Stiles wants to know about his best friend these days.

Just in case he shouts "No PDA on video game night!" and claims the entire couch for himself and Kitten. Unfortunately it just means he has to deal with Isaac and Scott sitting on the floor together arm-to-arm in front of him, congratulating each other on their various wins with hugs and hand-holding. (After Stiles reluctantly deems hand-holding an appropriate form of PDA and absolutely outlaws High Score Make Out Exceptions as a thing.)

-

Home from her night shift, Mrs. McCall gives Stiles a stern lecture about responsibility and taking care of animals and seems to imply Stiles hasn't had any luck taming the werewolves in his life and that she's not sure he's ready to deal with a cat. She's obviously exhausted after her double shift, and ends her speech telling Stiles he cares for people so intensely that she thinks he's the only one in their ragtag group that actually could handle a cat so in the end Stiles isn't sure if he should be offended or pleased.

Kitten lets Melissa pet it between its ears with only a mildly grumpy look, and as Scott and Isaac work in tandem in the kitchen to heat up a late night dinner for her, Stiles suggests she go over his house for breakfast when his dad gets off his shift and she smiles warmly at him.

-

Stiles tries to keep the kitten thing from his dad for as long as possible. When he does find out, after walking in on Stiles hand-feeding Kitten individual cat crunchies at 1:30am because Kitten seems to be disturbed by the concept of a bowl on the floor and Stiles is worried about malnutrition, his dad is less than pleased.

Thankfully, Melissa apparently told him beforehand and also apparently took him out for date night shots so his dad is a little more agreeable when he meets Kitten in the kitchen and almost misses when he pats it on the head with a grumble about stupidity.

"You're responsible for it," he says, "and don't let one kitten be a gateway kitten, son."

"I'll keep that in mind," Stiles says, before maneuvering his dad in the correct direction for the stairs.

-

Allison thinks kitten is adorable and also verifies that it's a she for Stiles, getting several little scratches in her mission to do so. In thanks, Stiles takes some of her arrowheads and offers to iodize the metal with a wolfsbane iodine mixture he discovered at school.

(She tells him he can drop them back off at Scott's because that's where she'll be that night and just the fact that Stiles wasn't invited over for a pack or friends thing even though it's apparently Allison and Isaac and Scott night means he quickly lets her know he'll give them to her next time he sees her instead to avoid traumatic threesome friendship ruining visuals. Just in case.)

-

Deaton could seemingly care less that Stiles is in possession of a kitten when Stiles brings her over to him to get her checked out.

He pronounces her healthy and prints off a bill for Stiles to take with him -- "What, no best friend to the true alpha discount?" doesn't go over particularly well.

"She's special, Stiles," Deaton says before Stiles leaves, in a tone he generally reserves for bad news or important facts or good news or passing comments about the weather -- so Stiles ignores the crypticness and just takes Kitten back with a thank you.

He rolls his eyes at her when he's turned with his back away from Deaton. For some reason, he gets two feelings at once: one that he's pretty sure Deaton knows he rolled his eyes and two: that the kitten agrees Deaton is the most blandly dramatic dude ever. Either way, Kitten seems happy she's back in Stiles' pocket and no longer as blood thirsty and demonic as she had been while Deaton tried to handle her.

It occurs to Stiles that Deaton might have been being sarcastic with the remark about Kitten being special, for all that she tried to tear Deaton up into itty bitty pieces while pathetically mewling and staring at Stiles like he could do something.

"You are special," Stiles affirms, carefully getting back into his jeep. "We're going to have to work on the agro and dependency parts, though."

-

Stiles goes to the loft after Deaton's because a few days ago Derek shot him a to-the-point text about coming over to grab some books when he got back from school and had the chance. Stiles has been home four days now and is, thankfully, excluded from whatever is going down at Scott's. (Probably everyone is going down at Scott's tonight, but Stiles doesn't want to think about it. Okay, he kind of does, but not driving downtown with Kitten in his hoodie.)

Cora catches him in the parking lot when Stiles gets to the loft and makes a face at him. "You got a cat, Stiles, really?"

She doesn't stop to try and pet Kitten or to chat, just hops in Derek's car and drives off.

"Nice to see you, too, as always. Catch up soon!" Stiles yells after her and Kitten meows after the car in a tiny adorable chirp.

-

When Derek slides the loft door open Stiles suddenly wishes he'd prepared something to say, instead of the long drawn out "heeeey" that he manages.

He's thrown off because Derek is leaning against the doorframe with an entirely unreadable expression, wearing a loose threadbare v-neck with a sagging pocket on the front. Stiles hasn't seen him in person since he had to come home last semester for the whole Weird Tentacle Thing No One Is Allowed To Talk About, and he feels sort of ridiculous for forgetting how attractive Derek is. Which is, admittedly, easy to do sometimes when Stiles' collective circle of supernatural and supernatural-adjacent friends could all easily find work as print models or internet porn sensations or whatever.

There are boxes all over the loft, when Stiles steps around Derek's lean and peeks inside. "I didn't know you were moving," Stiles says, dumbly, like Derek usually updates him on the minutiae of his life.

Derek raises one eyebrow at him and shuts the door. "I am," he says, dryly. "Which is have a bunch of books I thought you might want to take for the summer. They're upstairs in a box."

"Oh, cool," Stiles says, because he's great at words.

Derek makes no move to go upstairs and get the box of books, because werewolves are all dicks, Stiles assumes, and like to watch their human acquaintances struggle with easy tasks. So Stiles heads for the loft's spiral stairs and resigns himself to coming back downstairs an unflattering shade of sweaty-red.  Except when he gets one step up, Kitten, who Stiles had almost forgotten about, immediately wakes up in Stiles' pocket and freaks the fuck out. He wraps a hand around her to try and make her feel more secure when he tries to go up another step and in turn she tries to claw at him through his hoodie, wailing with little awful high-pitched meows.

"The fuck," he asks her, and then tries to pull her out of his pocket without getting scratched.

Derek is suddenly right behind him with a hand on Stiles' shoulder. "I'll take her," he says, and -- before Stiles can warn him it's a bad idea, super healing or not -- Derek reaches out and holds out his hand in front of Kitten's nose and takes her into his other hand. She calms down immediately when Derek steps back from the stairs and looks up at Stiles with a peeved expression from where she's sitting up in the stretch of Derek's open palm.

"The fuck," Stiles repeats, staring at them dumbly.

"Go get the books," Derek says.

Stiles, at a loss, goes and grabs the box of books Derek has labeled for him in neat black permenant marker and comes back downstairs a minute later expecting an alpha werewolf vs. kitten showdown happening. Instead he finds Derek leaning against the wall next to the staircase with Kitten in his front shirt pocket, dragging his vneck down obscenely low. She's staring up at Derek with her two front paws clawed into the material right below the falling collar and it's the worst thing Stiles has ever seen, made even more worse by the way Derek says, "it's okay," to Kitten in this devastatingly soft voice as he looks down at her.

Stiles, because subtlety has never been his strong suit, drops the box of books an inch from his foot and doesn't even register the noise it makes. Kitten does, though, and curls up further into Derek's pocket.

"You scared her," Derek says, and Stiles gapes at him before striding forward and taking her back in one motion, trying to ignore the heat of Derek's skin through his stupid soft shirt when his hands brush against Derek's chest.

Kitten seems fine with the change, going limp when Stiles picks her up and curling up against Stiles's neck where he cradles her. She twists around to stare at Derek while Stiles holds her. "She's mine," Stiles says, stupidly, and presses her closer.

Derek rolls his eyes, pushes off the wall with a disturbing amount of grace. "What did you name her?"

"I haven't picked anything out yet. I did not plan for this summer to include cat ownership," Stiles says, a shade defensively even though Derek's tone is mild.

"What did you plan for your summer?" Derek asks. Like he actually wants to know, even.

Stiles feels a flush crawling up his neck, his subconscious a traitor. Not for the first time he's glad werewolves can't actually read minds along with heartbeats, because Stiles is thinking about the doc buried deeper than even his weirdest porn files on his laptop, with a 27 step summer plan to finally get in Derek's pans.

"Supernatural research, mostly," Stiles says. It's not a lie, really, because he's firmly convinced that sex with Derek promises to open up a whole new world of things to research. Multiple times and in multiple positions, even. "You?"

"Moving," Derek says. "Maybe rent a workspace downtown and get back into metal work," he adds, and looks almost as surprised as Stiles is at the additional information.

"That sounds awesome," Stiles says. One of kitten's ears flicks under Stiles' chin, ticklish, and he doesn't quite manage to bite back the laugh that comes out.

Derek reaches out, casual as can be, and scritches kitten between the ears, his knuckles catching on Stiles' chin. Stiles hadn't even realized they were so close.

"How about Luna," Derek says, as Kitten presses her head up into Derek's hand and, in turn, tries to nuzzle against Stiles' chin, leaving the back of Derek's cupped hand pressed hot against Stiles' neck.

"You can't just name my cat, dude," Stiles says, as Kitten begins to purr.

Derek pulls his hand back. "She needs a name. Just a suggestion," he says.

"I'll take it under advisement," Stiles says, and then because Derek is walking away and Stiles can't come up with a reason to step closer without being weird, adds, "I can't wait to look at these books, seriously. I saw a few of the spines, where did you even get these?"

"That witch that died," Derek says, walking away.

Stiles grimaces down at the box of books, briefly, and then at Derek's retreating back. "Hey, do you --" he starts, with no actual thought trajectory.

"--Chinese?" Derek says, at the same time, holding out his cellphone.

"Uh, what?"

"Do you want something delivered?" Derek asks.

Kitten nips at Stiles' hand and Stiles nods in the affirmative, startled. "Yeah, absolutely."

-

Peter walks into the loft two hours later and too late for the take-out Stiles and Derek decimated while sitting on the floor going through some of Stiles' new books.

Kitten is sitting on top of a box in front of Derek and Stiles, where moments before the loft door slid open she had been staring at them in contentment, starting to sleepily rock back and forth. She twists toward the door with narrowed eyes when Peter walks in, and Stiles completely understands the expression she has going on.

"How cute," Peter says, making eye contact with Stiles instead of looking at Kitten as he walks over. When Peter is close enough, he pauses to reach down and pet Kitten, bending closer when she leans back from him with a hiss. With an extraordinary display of fucking awesomeness,  a second later as Stiles and Derek watch, she jumps from her box and onto Peter's face, claws first.

Derek barks out a laugh that's one of the most unflattering things Stiles has ever heard, which means it's also his new favorite sound.

Stiles takes a long, satisfying moment to watch Peter get his face clawed at before he says, mildly, "Luna, no."

When she doesn't stop, and Peter starts to raise his hands, Stiles stands to pick her off Peter's head while keeping as much distance as possible between them.

Peter disappears with a growl that isn't entirely human and after making sure he's disappeared completely upstairs, Stiles sits back down. Derek is huffing a little with laughter, still, and their shoulders brush together when Stiles misjudges the distance.

"Good girl," Derek tells Luna -- name apparently decided, even though Stiles meant to hold out for a while longer. Stiles snorts in agreement. Derek gives Stiles half a smile and reaches out a hand. "C'mere, Luna," he says, dragging her name out with a meaningful look.

Stiles sets Luna down on his lap and she crawls toward Derek with a happy chirp of a meow. "

"Hey there," Derek says to her, in his devastating quiet kitten voice.

Stiles melts a little, brushing their shoulders together again when he reaches down to pet Luna's back where she's curled up on Derek's knee.

"You're definitely a special kitten," Stiles says.

Luna blinks up at him and butts her head up into his hand with a demanding snuffy noise.

"She's definitely yours," Derek says.

"Hell yes she is," Stiles agrees, proud to be the owner of anything that has attacked Peter Hale with no mercy.

Stiles flips the book he was reading back open and sets it on his lap. "She seems to like you, though," he says, a few seconds later. It comes out miles away from the light tone he intended.

"Does she?" Derek asks, contemplative. Stiles looks up at him and has to hold himself still so he doesn't immediately look away.

"Yeah," Stiles says. It comes out as a painfully honest whisper. He clears his throat. "I mean, she didn't let anyone else even really touch her, and now look at her. So, yeah."

Derek looks at him for a beat too long before he looks down at Luna. "Good," Derek says, and Stiles tracks the upward curve of his mouth as he scritches Luna between her ears. "That's good to know."

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to talk to me about the summer adventures of Luna the cat in Beacon Hills, or be my best friend or talk about the glorious OT3 that is Allison/Isaac/Scott or whatever, I'm peachbows on tumblr! Since that seems to be the trendy end note to have these days. :D


End file.
